Too Far from Antibes
Bede Scott
Penguin: 2022
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Jean-Luc Guéry is the hapless hero of Too Far from Antibes, a murder mystery set in Saigon, 1951. He arrives from the Côte d’Azur    dressed in a flannel suit at the height of the dry season, when temperatures can rise above 35 degrees Celsius, and determined to figure out who murdered his brother, a humble purveyor of agricultural machinery, whose demise makes zero sense. A career hack for a rag in Antibes and a failed novelist, Jean-Luc loves detective books, but he’s no sleuth. He’s a horrendous alcoholic and the kind of man who gambles away his last 500 francs at the casino in Cannes.

In the fashion of classic noir, Jean-Luc is repeatedly told to get out of town: ‘Saigon is too dangerous, monsieur’; ‘No one can be trusted.’ When he’s beaten up one night, all three assailants look like ‘Henri Deglane, a professional wrestler … famed for his Olympian physique’. Triplet thugs? But Jean-Luc doesn’t heed the warning. Instead, comically hampered with a cervical collar, he perseveres until the bitter end.

• Tags: Bede Scott, Connla Stokes, Vietnam